ABOUT

A square painting containing coloured rectangles of plastic and metal hangs on the wall in the workroom of Michaël Snitker. / On the brown, blue and metal coloured surfaces are also numbers drawn, as if they have a meaning. / The object behaves as a painting, but it looks more like a piece of furniture because of its smooth finish. / One could read this work of art as an extract of all images that have ever appeared in paintings. / It seems to ask: “Can not everything be reduced to colours and numbers?” / I do not feel that it is beautiful, but it intrigues me, for I suspect that it shows something of the owner. / Not only the painting in his workroom, but also the desk on which he works and the cupboards have their own system. / For example, the Amsterdam tap water is served in red plastic Spa bottles and the small change is saved in colored plastic rolls which are meant for that particular purpose. / The books in the cupboard, arranged by shape, are not read, to be perfectly clear, but they are felt, weighed and looked at. / It is the quality of the designer to, just as the painting of colours and numbers does, cut the words, just as this one  here , loose / and to treat the numbers and colours as having no responsibility or purpose.
[Jan Rothuizen]

Michaël Snitker is a Amsterdam-based graphic designer. After his education in The Hague he lived and worked for several years in Rotterdam and New York and then moved on to Amsterdam to start his own studio. He works mainly for clients originating from the cultural sector. In addition, he initiates, realizes and designs special publications in collaboration with publishers, architects, visual artists and writers.

Besides his activities as a designer he teaches regularly at the Academy of Architecture in Amsterdam, the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and is a committee member and advisor at the Creative Industries Fund in Rotterdam and at the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts.